This Film Is On

Last December I reported on the first filming session for the Belfast punk movie, Good Vibrations. It was a rousing occasion and people reacted to the news with much passion. In the middle of it all is Terri Hooley, the focus of the fervour, who is responding with equal measures of humility and bravado. And on Sunday, we gathered at the Queen's Film Theatre to see a sample edit of the film.

There were maybe 150 people there - some with an active stake in the shooting and others just curious to see how their teenage years have translated to this kind of a production. We knew that the edit would be only seven minutes long but still, it was an event.

Happily, Richard Dormer seems at ease in the Hooley role; quizzical, twitchy, at odds with the mainstream. We seem him watching his first Rudi gig, and being transfixed by the power of punk. We watch the guy in the office of an amusingly straight bank manager (Lawlor Roddy), offering up £40 in collateral for the start-up on a record shop. And there's a savage montage of Troubles footage, ironically mangled into 'English Country Garden'.

Early days yet, but the production team seem to understand that this is a story that requires a proper deal of soul, intelligence, compassion and wit. They're giving us excitations.